October 16, 2014--Cuba Libre

Last week there was a report in the New York Times that during the most recent fiscal year, about 25,000 Cubans entered the U.S. illegally. More than at any time since the massive arrival of Boat People back in 1970s, 80s and 90s when a total of at least 300,000 came ashore (or drowned) in Florida, including 125,000 alone on 1,700 homemade vessels during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

Clearly our borders are even more porus than we imagined.

Central Americans and Mexicans continue to enter through gaps in the fence along the Rio Grande and, as an echo from the past, tens of thousands more are arriving again from Cuba in the same sort of rickety boats and rafts used previously.

This time they are not so much flooding into the country to escape Fidel Castro's oppressive regime but more the result of Cuba's collapsing economy. They are mainly economic, not political refuges.

And though we now have policies in place that make it easier for Cubans with families in the U.S. to enter legally, as this news reveals, the current policy is not working for all the Cubans who want to come here to begin new lives.

Cuba is such a hot-button topic that even with a growing interest by both of our political parties in appealing to Latino voters, about Cuba policy almost no one is saying, "Enough already."

Hardly anyone is suggesting we "normalize" relations with the Raul Castro government (Fidel lives on but, in his dotage, is in more than semi-retirmeent) and few are concluding, as communist-baiter Nixon did, that it is finally time to find ways to establish working relations with Cuba as Nixon dramatically accomplished with "Red" China.

Blocking any bold moves to recognizing the Cuban government must be the lingering fear that aging Cuba Libre Cuban-Americans, some of whom are Bay of Pigs veterans, will vote against any candidate or party that calls for normalization and, in presidential elections, might tip Florida into the column of the candidate who opposes any changes in status. Since as Florida goes, so goes the general election.

Which brings me to Barack Obama who is desperately seeking to do things that demonstrate he is an effective leader who still counts--

Do a Nixon.

Get Henry Kissinger out of retirement and have him (secretly) prepare the ground for an Obama trip to Havana to shake hands on a deal with Raul. In the same way Kissinger paved the way for Nixon to go to China to meet with Premier Chou En-lai and Chairman Mao. The rest is history with Nobel prizes waiting.

So the old Cubans sipping cafe con leche and puffing cigars on Calle Ocho in Miami will be upset. Who cares. They aren't oriented to vote for Hillary or Democrats anyway and Obama isn't any longer running for anything. Just for his place in history.